Chetspeak (2): In A Throoming Mood

Bernie ran for the phone, sliding just a bit on one of my toys – a favorite, actually, bone-shaped, made of a nicely chewy but firm rubber – and losing the manila envelope. As he skidded to a stop – a stiff-legged skid almost as good as one of mine – the knife flew out of the envelope and stuck point first in the floor, the handle quivering.

But I couldn’t help it. The knife – that knife! – sticking in the floor, vibrating in my ears with this throom throom throom: you’d be jumping up and down, too, count on it. Bernie grabbed the rubber bone and flung it through the open window. I dove out after the bone, raced across the back yard, snagged it, spun around and jumped back inside. A new game, and what a game, indoors and outdoors, running and leaping – this one had it all.

This entry was posted
on Sunday, March 24th, 2013 at 7:59 am and is filed under Chet The Dog.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
Both comments and pings are currently closed.

110 Responses to “Chetspeak (2): In A Throoming Mood”

Good morning, Chet. We want to try that game, but first Pop has to remove those heavy wooden storm windows, which he won’t do because he says it is still winter. Speaking of winter, it is going to snow tonight and tomorrow! Yippee!
Dawson’s dog is to the right: a sign of a good day.

Masquers, Mom got called by a coworker at 3am, and she said the moon out the window at that time looked almost full. Earlier, when they returned from dinner with 10 of their friends, they released us from prison, and it looked like the middle of the day outside.
We did have our eggs today…always a wonderful addition to Sunday morning kibble. (Whispering) we eavesdropped on Mom and Pop discussing how they are going to try to keep us from collecting our own eggs. heh heh a brand new game is in the planning stage. Barb, we learned that Mom has names picked for her soon-to-arrive girls, and she is begging us not to break her heart. Hmmmmm.

Whoo hoo and wowser! What a morning! We just came in from a half hour of playing in the rain, somethong mom usually frowns on. Today she said it was good for “puppy packages”. We sure didn’t see any…mmmm? Now have played SUPERPUPPY with towels and got to read with Chet. Does life get any better? Thanks, big guy.

Carpola!!!! Mom’s most reliable weather source is saying that The Weather Channel and those other numskulls are all wet in their snow forecast. It sounds like I am getting screwed once again. Am I allowed to say that on this here blog? We are only getting a very little bit of snow.

Maila & I are fed once a day by our cruel humans, but a certain house-sitter has been known to pamper us, not only with breakfast AND dinner, but with treaties throughout the day.
The parents came home from vacation saying we were two(too) fatties.

Our yucky kibble is out all day long, but mom gives us a nice dinner. It varies, but it usually consists of kibble in warm water, a little olive oil, and either leftover meat and veggies, canned dog food, or an egg.

Barb, No, The Howlers won’t be having eggs to eat more often. They will be dining on chicken more often. I am so jealous.
Us Sibers may not be very trainable but we are very good at problem solving…like breaking out of a yard or breaking into a hen house.

Macy, I eat twice a day. Mom has been feeding her dogs twice a day for years.

Macy – we eat twice a day too – kibble soaked in hot water for a minute or two. And we are each allowed one bite of something from the dinner table AFTER dinner is done. Most nights its veggies, but Callie’s favorite snack is French fries or pasta.

We never heard of canned dog food. Mama says it is as bad as canned peas, and she won’t even look at those in the store, never mind have them in the house. So we are so grateful to her for not giving us icky canned food.

But we do wish they had steak more often around here. Especially the kind with big, heavy bones in it….yum!

The girls always eat dry kibble, and Kat even acts happy and grateful for that crap. Me? I lie there and glare at the 2-leggeds until they mix something in, like meat, or gravy, or pan juices, or yogurt, or a spoonful of can food. Hey! They don’t call me the Perfect Boy for nothing.

Time-Out!….Someones been making stuff for Great Grandmas Case Noodle all morning….wheeze!…Now its time for a break before putting all the ingredients together and making them….snort!…Have I mentioned how hungry I am?

T & G, Barb uses the canned food very lightly on my kibble, and she only buys really good quality stuff. Nothing that says meat by products and yucky un-identifiable things. And I always wait at her side at meals, because I get the last bite of food and then get to lick the plate. Barb says that is the dishwasher pre-wash cycle.

Oh, and the N. Sparks book The Lucky One was pretty good. One thing that did not ring true tho – the female lead character, who runs a boarding/training kenne,l laughed and said “That was gross” when Zeus licked her face. Barb did not think a dog person would think a dog kiss was gross.

Franklin here: That is a real part of the book. After we finished listening to that we tried jumping in and out of the window. Throoming was not a success. The Pack talked me into going first. I landed half in, half out of the window. Then Rose climbed on top of me made it through the window, but collapsed in the lawn outside. Mattie then crawled on me, stepped on Rose and went walkabout. They don’t call her Waltzing Mathilda for nothing.

I also had kibble put out for me all day. In fact, I was the one who put it out, well sort of. I got the lid off of the garbage can where the two leggeds keep a whole bunch of kibble and proceeded to eat. I was in 7th Heaven! Then the two leggeds came yelling and now we’re back to two meals a day. Morning is kibble, supplements, garlic, and homemade soup. Dinner is kibble and soup.

Not saying how many treats we get. I can count up to two and we get that many several times over.

We get to eat all day long. This is as it should be for we are Proud and Mighty Kats and we should be served by our loyal subjects as our status demands.
And we do catch the occasional mouse just to add variety to our diet.

Here is a picture of the chicken coop, except the one we are getting will reverse where the man door and chicken door are. Those boxes on the front will be where the eggs will be, and the lid shown is lifted open but will be kept closed and latched they say. We have diagrammed it and are “hatching” our schemes.

Howlers: There may be “success” in your future, but perhaps no egg Sundays.
Buddy & TC, Basil & Sage: Same here…food is at my beck and call…always.
This is as it should be as I am sure the other kats on the blog will agree….especially Alice & Abbie who have their own “Staff”.

Lunch!….So after much toil and trouble the Case Noodle was made and many were eaten….snort!….Not something Beau and I desire, thats for sure. But that German Sausage they had with it was wicked good…burrp!

CHobbit – (whispering, so certain Corgis don’t hear) I switched my girls to Wellness formula for less active dogs – during the winter, they don’t run around in the backyard nearly as much as they do in summer – even hyperactive little Gilly was developing quite a pot belly. They never batted an eyelash at the food switch – of course, food only lasts in their dishes a few milliseconds, but if they hated it, they surely would have let us know.
It does seem that some of the senior or less active foods are far less appealing to some dogs, but even Callie, the local resident fuss budget eats the Wellness with no problem.

Where is Siber-H today? He needs to weight in (ha, ha typo but I’m keeping it) on the issue of how many times a day should one be fed. I am curious how his owner responds to those blue mascaraed eyes begging for food.

My mom is no fun when it comes to what I can and cannot eat. I get most of my calories from my kibble, a few dog treats daily, and my Tarter Shield chew strips.
Mom says it is very hard, but she does resist my intense blue eyes because she wants me to stay at the perfect weight that I am. I weiged 69 pounds when Husky Rescue took me in and now I weight 53 pounds. (whispering, I was very fluffy)
I will admit that with mom’s weird ideas about what is good for a dog, I never get sick to my stomach or get the runs.

Ok, now that I know for sure that we are being mistreated, how MUCH do you guys get of kibble at those 2 meals. I get 1 cup one time a day, and the vet says that I am a “chunky monkey”. *I weigh 22 lbs*

Oleys, we sent your mom a long SDD, but forgot to tell her that the little chicks start getting tail and wing pin feathers by 3-4 days, but it takes about 4-5 weeks before they are pretty much fully feathered, so you will need the red heat lamp for that long. BTW, that is a beautiful coop! How many chickens do they recommend for that size coop?

Macy, I get a cup of kibble at breakfast and another cup at dinner, but we cannot compare the amount I eat and the amount you eat.
The very best way to figure out how much to feed your dog is to look at your dog and weigh your dog and adjust the amount you are feeding accordingly. Weigh the dog on a regular schedule.
Those charts on the sacks of kibble that tell you how much to feed your dog according to their weight are useless.

When you have two dogs, you have to feed them equally even if one has a weight problem and one doesn’t. They know portions and quantities of milk bones and there is not much room for fooling them.

Voice of experience here. Sadie and Lady already barely get along and adding food discrepancies would cause serious problems. The only fight they ever had was over food (I learned not to feed them in the dog pen). Oddly, no noise was involved so when they came flying through the dog door one morning with blood dripping and flying everywhere and careening around the room in hysterics, I thought someone had shot them and zoomed them to the vet in a panic.

Dawson: Did you see the photo of my Four-legged and me. Aren’t I beautiful? I loved meeting Wose and Grizzly. Grizz hardly showed any signs of being lergic to Wose on their visit. That made me happy. You know what else made me happy? Tummies.

Since it is never too early to start thinking about Iditarod 2014, Grizzly and I have been doing some putting of heads together. We will not take credit for all of this, since my pal Rio mentioned this several blogs ago.

Having seen first hand all the work that CEO and BDHW Rebecca puts in to repair repairs on AJ’s mushing clothes, and knowing that AJ has had to repair repairs on his sled, Grizzly and I would like to start a donation fund for “Let’s Clothe AJ, the Best Looking and Smelling Musher on the Trail.” There are other several things that are needed at Snowhook, like a new sled bag, new harnesses for the dogs, (Rebecca tells me that Doc and Charlie were not dropped because they were sick, but because the were chewing up their harnesses). Maybe that was their way of flossing. :). Rebecca will give me an update on items needed.

Right now, Rebecca estimates clothing the Giant at $ 1000. AJ also needs a new sled, but that will be taken care of separately.

I know that many of you are going through hard times, but any amount you can give will be appreciated.

The Prof and I thank you for your generosity, and thank Rio for his pugnacity in helping Snowhook.

Macy – from what we know about MinPins, your vet might have a point there. When Tupper first got here, she weighed 18 pounds – way too skinny and stressed for a Corgi. She now weighs 25 pounds, and the vet says that is just perfect.
Gilly was still a baby when she arrived at 14 pounds, but she weighs 26 now. She is a little taller than Tupper.
They each get 1/3 cup of kibble at breakfast and dinner.

CHarris – we had some food fight issues with Gilly at first. Whatever h e l l she lived through it must have included having to fight for food. She would eat so fast that she threw up after most meals, and I worried about bloat or other digestive issues. We got her a “slow down” bowl, and while she is still a speed eater, she at least has to work for it, and take a breath now and then. Might be a good way to feed one of your dogs more, and the other less, if the one getting less had a slow down bowl.

Rose!…How very Pug of youse guys!….Woooooo!….A Clothe The Giant Fund!..snort!snort!…It probably takes a lot of cloth to clothe that guy properly…heh!…I’m in but I don’t have any solid figures yet for how much…sniff!…Do we send you an email with our donations? Will you and Grizzly be keeping up a spreadsheet for the fund?…snorkel!

RIO! Yes, if youse guys would send me an e-mail, I will be keeping track of the donations, and will have a spreadsheet. I will have a better idea of the cost of what is needed when Rebecca is back to being tip-top.

Wose, good idea for clothe the Giant. We will contribute when we get some money back in our stash. But what about the dog clothes, harnesses, etc? What a shame that Doc and Charlie were dropped for reasons other than illness, injury, or tiredness.

Barb, Mom says that there coop is supposed to be great for 8-12 chickens! Are we drooling?

Belly, we think you are the most beautiful of all the Snowhook dogs, and that’s saying something!

As for food, we each get one scoop twice a day. Did we tell youse that our kibble was changed last week? We are getting high end stuff now. Mom says that when Sasha came here, she had food issues because of the way she had to fight for her food in her prior bad life. Mom had to feed her in a crate for awhile. We did the same thing with Kat in the beginning, so she would get used to only eating her own food and not get in trouble with the rest of us.

Stover!….It is a way to keep track of how much will be donated. Of course you can send a check directly to Snowhook no matter what….snort!…Telling Rose how much we pledge or plan on sending ths a good way for Rebecca to know how much money to expect and then she can plan accordingly… wheeze!

Yeep! My Two-Lady comes out of the fog to an announcement from my very, most, special, best friend, Wose. My Two-Legged and Giant and humbled and honored at the support you’ve given them. Sniff. She would be twirling, but instead she’s laying flat. It doesn’t quite have the celebratory flair that twirling has, but what are you going to do?

The Giant is on the trail right now, just a fun, end of the season run. I will sit on her to keep her still. She is complaining of boredom. What? Giving me tummies isn’t thrilling? Those pills must really be strong if she can’t find pure joy in adoring me. Poor girl. Poor me.

Rebecca, sleep and do what you are told to get well. I will sleep on floor with dog again tonight to make sure she sleeps. Cast is a problem 🙁 Aren’t our critters funny? Aren’t we funny? Love da babies…….

Rio: The race season is over for us this year, but the Giant will still take the team out for a while longer, usually the end of April, but every year is different. On Friday we got about a foot and a half of snow, six more inches—whatever six is—yesterday and it is snowing again today. He takes it personally every time it snows because he has to clear our driveway. It doesn’t bother me.

HOH: Whitey-Lance tells me you wondered how I could ever be a thief when Spence posted a picture of me. Thank you for believing in my innocence. I think Wose added color when she described the incident with her and her belongings. I merely wanted to hold them for her, for safe keeping.

Masquers: Your dishwasher is broken? Me and my tongue will be over in a flash.

A little over a month ago I sat on my couch for the first time in days with nothing to do for a couple of hours. Well that’s not exactly true, I had things to do but I was watching tv pretending without a lot of success that work and mushing didn’t occupy every spare minute of my life.

What I’m getting at with all this though is that at that moment I couldn’t believe how fast a season had flown by and I was staring Iditarod in the face. And then through quite a race it was over.

Now that I’ve had a chance to recover and before another month passes before I know it; the first order of business is to say a simple and significant thank you to all of you. Rebecca and I are extremely grateful that you share in our collective adventure. We just can’t say enough about what your support means.

Mushing at its heart is about musher and the team. You could say it’s a selfish endeavor. However, from the first night on the trail this race was different in that all of you were there in one way or another. Without getting too sentimental it made this race better knowing you all were there. Thank you.

Looking forward to 2014 we look forward to having you along side us again.

Highlights from this year’s race:

Started out great
Team got sick
Midnight river crossings in waist deep water near Iditarod
Musher got sick
Team and musher pulled it together and finished 27 hours faster than last year
Dogs are just heroic in my opinion
Looking forward to carving out another 24 hours next year
Looking forward to sharing this adventure with you again